I'm really, really tempted to think that Fonda named themselves after Peter Fonda, the actor. Not that I have grounds for anything resembling a conclusion, but I'm sure you will allow me to speculate, so long as I admit as much. So consider this: Peter Fonda is best known for his work in a couple of late-60's counter-cultural movies, most notably 1969's Easy Rider, in which he played a character known as Captain America; Fonda are an L.A.-based foursome who move through sunshine pop, shoegazer, and psychedelia with equal ease.

But that's not enough to go on, is it? There's got to be more in common than drugs and a few retro-genres. And perhaps there is. Fonda's two founding members, singer Emily Cook and guitarist David Klotz, met on a movie set in 1994-- so they're probably cinephiles to some extent. But what seems to me the most obvious similarity is that Fonda, like many of Peter Fonda's characters-- including his aged nod to Captain America in Steven Soderbergh's The Limey-- are seemingly shallow and harmless, but they occasionally reveal a deep, palpable edginess.

The title of their sophomore full-length, The Strange and the Familiar, is no less a sign of this. The song titles, however, are a completely different matter. Look no further than the opener, "The Sun Keeps Shining on Me," which provides a sonic approximation of sunshine using shrill bells, well-spaced guitar thumps, light orchestral strokes, and descending, overlapping guitar notes. And then there's Cook's voice, which clings to a very slight Brit accent on the lower notes (she hails from London) and absolutely shines on the high ones. Unfortunately, the song doesn't live up to its promise, since it repeats the same few summery lines and-- worse still-- includes a few downright irritating spoken passages.

"Close to Home" picks things up with a peppy drumbeat and nicely overlapping vocals from Cook, who sounds just as good in a fast-tempo setting. But the "edginess" doesn't surface until the lush, caterwauling "The Lessons to Unlearn." Here, Fonda are at their best, providing a dense sonic mixture of erratic keyboards, varied electric guitars, and dual vocals that are more celestial than sunny.

"Sell Your Memories" doesn't knock the raised bar off its hinges. The track begins slowly enough, but breaks into a Doves-like chorus of soaring electric guitars, lofty vocals and shimmering keyboards. "Cape May" then takes a worthwhile side-step into mechanized beats and lightly vocoderized, sing-song dual vocals that are a sharp facsimile of the Folk Implosion's aptly-titled One Part Lullaby.

Let's keep making comparisons. "Summer Land (Be My Love)" recalls the Breeders, musically speaking. "Dance in the Light" is more similar to Juliana Hatfield's post-Blake Babies work, providing a euphonious verse followed by a thrusting chorus of ringing guitars and crystalline vocals. The male vocals and cacophony of strings, drums and guitar exude the beautiful weirdness of the Flaming Lips. And the His Name is Alive-ish closer, "A Sad Girl's Tale," marries a deliberate bass and one tense, repetitive guitar note before building into an electric chorus about a girl who needs to "summon the courage of living."

Okay, so maybe Fonda aren't going to be the Peter Fonda of music-- and not only because they're 33 years too late. But they, too, are similarly inconsistent. For every dense, multi-genre epiphany, there's a forgettable twee- or dream-pop number. Remember, though, that this works vice versa, thus providing a fair share of exceptional tracks. Fonda may have lost some of the youthful energy of their debut, 1999's The Innocent Girl, but they've made up for it with greater songwriting and musicianship. So don't be surprised if, in the distant future, Fonda make a record as quaint but sufficiently moving as, say, Ulee's Gold.

-Ryan Kearney